The new space is a collaboration between SAS, the Good Life Center and student activists across Yale’s campus. Over the summer of 2023, SAS began the process of converting a former classroom assigned to the office into a student lounge, but the idea of an initiative for an inclusive space for Yale students with disabilities to socialize and relax has been a longtime aspiration for SAS and the Good Life Center. 

Corinne Coia, director of Yale College Wellness Programs, told the News about her goal to open more Good Life Center satellite spaces.

“Our original space is at the Schwarzman Center, and we opened our first satellite location at the Divinity School,” she told the News. “Our mission is to remind students that relaxation is important for academic and personal growth as well.”

Kimberly McKeown, director of SAS, told the News that what was initially a small-scale project became a larger collaborative effort. After SAS employees reached out to colleagues at the Good Life Center for tips on improving the atmosphere of the lounge, the two groups began working together to create a co-sponsored space.

The space was specifically designed in consideration for students with disabilities, featuring various seating options, lighting control, snack options and environmental considerations. Coia said that the teams at SAS and the Good Life Center thought carefully about the design of the space, especially concerning students who use wheelchairs and have sensory disabilities. 

Vanessa Blas ’22 SPH ’23, Woodbridge Fellow and director of programming at the Good Life Center, told the News that they wanted to create the atmosphere of a “lived environment.” The space, which features live plants and a moss wall, was curated by members of the Good Life Center. With a wide array of seating options and a cozy interior, the Good Life Center team said that they not only want the space to serve many purposes for students with disabilities but also to act as a place to relax and hang out with friends. 

Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86, secretary and vice president for university life at Yale, leads the Belonging at Yale initiative, which aims to advance Yale’s mission for vibrant community life and the fostering of a learning environment in which every student feels a sense of belonging. At the space’s opening celebration, she told the News about her pride and appreciation for student activism’s role in making the space possible. 

“We had a lot of excited students coming together,” Goff-Crews told the News. “We had students that were thinking about SAS and thinking about the intersection of support for students with disabilities. A lot of this was done in part by the students. It really got us thinking about our work of promoting wellness on campus and about what Yale is as an institution.” 

As of 2022, the number of students reporting disabilities to SAS had almost doubled in three years, a number affinity groups noted was likely an underestimate. Up to the opening of the Good Life Center at SAS, the group has not made any spaces available specifically for students with disabilities.

Elizabeth Conklin, associate vice president for institutional equity, accessibility, and belonging and a Title IX coordinator, was also present at the event. She told the News about her excitement at the space’s opening and expressed hope that its future will continue to inspire the creation of new satellite spaces for Yale’s diverse student body.

“It became apparent to me that we needed more space for students with disabilities to congregate,” Conklin explained to the News. “And it came together beautifully.”

The Good Life Center at SAS is located at 35 Broadway. 

The post Yale celebrates opening of Good Life Center at Student Accessibility Services appeared first on Yale Daily News.

WLI is an organization founded by Yale undergraduates in 2006 with the mission to empower women and offer opportunities for leadership and development. The group aims to enrich the professional and social lives of Yale women by offering the opportunity to learn from, speak with, and network with women leaders in a variety of fields, per Sabrina Guo ’27, who is a member.

The 2024 conference will host speakers at Yale to discuss prominent topics on female leadership and empowerment and to help advance careers for women in fields including law and policy, STEM, healthcare, arts and media and entrepreneurship. 

Anita Wu ’03  LAW ’06, co-president of the Yale Club of Los Angeles and an attorney at Brown Neri Smith & Khan LLP, will hold a career development workshop at the conference.

“To me, whatever inspiration and support we can give to Yale’s talented emerging leaders as they blaze their own paths forward is a critical part of Yale’s mission and what makes the Yale community so special,” Wu told the News. “It’s how Yale alumni can contribute beyond what we can achieve ourselves.”

Wu is one of several speakers who will be at the conference. Other speakers and panelists include Sally Buzbee, executive editor at the Washington Post, Robin Wheat, former executive director of the Nassau County Minority Caucus, and Grace La, professor of architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Priyanka Babu ’24, the conference’s director, told the News that, given the large size of the organization, it is important for them to leverage their platform to highlight intersectional feminism and provide a variety of networking opportunities. “The goal of the conference is not only to provide an enriching networking and pre-professional experience for students, but also to contribute to a broader conversation regarding inclusivity and empowerment on campus and in today’s professional landscape,” Babu said.

Babu said that she is particularly proud of the Women in Science Leadership panel that she put together. 

The panel features Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology at the School of Medicine, and Margaret Porter Scott, vice president of biochemical and cellular pharmacology at Genentech.

“These remarkable women are true trailblazers in the field in every sense of the word, both in their science and leadership roles,” Babu told the News. 

Babu emphasized to the News the tremendous contributions of Iwasaki and Porter Scott to the field of medicine. 

Babu told the News that Iwasaki has “single-handedly” spearheaded COVID-19 and long COVID-19 research efforts and has played a central role in public health media outreach during the pandemic.

Porter Scott, Babu said, leads groundbreaking research at Genentech, often regarded as the first biotechnology company, and serves as chair of Genentech Women in Science and Engineering. 

“It is an honor and a privilege to host these two incredible speakers,” Babu told the News. “The WLI team is excited to highlight extraordinary women in science leadership roles while creating meaningful networking experiences for undergraduate students.”

Guo, a moderator of several panel discussions, told the News that she is excited about being involved with WLI and advocating for women’s empowerment. 

Guo is the founder of Girl Pride International, a 501(c)(3) that focuses on supporting displaced, refugee and migrant girls’ intellectual, material and social needs. 

“I’ve seen how cross-cultural dialogue can connect people around the world, and how these connections can transform into treasured lifelong friendships and invaluable mentorships,” she told the News. “I joined WLI and helped to coordinate this conference to build more of these cross-cultural bridges, and to also just bond with amazing women leaders across the nation.”

The conference will be held this week on Feb. 3 and 4 at the Humanities Quadrangle.

The post Yale Women’s Leadership Initiative conference to highlight intersectionality, offer networking opportunities appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Rhythmic Blue is a dance group founded in 1991 that encompasses different elements of hip-hop. Affiliated with the Afro-American Cultural Center as a resident group, it pays homage to the dance styles that originated from African American communities. Their choreography merges modern, tap, street jazz and contemporary African styles and showcases these dances in two shows yearly, one at the end of each semester. They also perform at various events throughout the semester, including charity events and the Yale-Harvard football showdown. 

This September, Rhythmic Blue welcomed in its new members for their fall 2023 tap class. The newly inducted group of talented young dancers includes Tori Browne ’27, Alice Zhong ’27, Shirley Zhu SPH ’25, Christian Daniels ’27, Kianna Jean-Francois ’27, Natalie Leung ’27, Cheryl Zhang SOM ’24 and Nneka Moweta ’27. 

“Auditioning for RB was a really fun learning experience,” Daniels told the News. “Before I came to Yale, I knew I wanted to dance in a Hip Hop group, as Hip Hop has always been an important aspect of my life. Growing up in predominantly African American spaces, hip-hop dance was always a key part of me.”

Daniels said that he always wanted to join a hip-hop team but was never able to as he did not have access to a studio at home. Upon being accepted to Yale, however, he knew he had to fulfill what had always been a lifelong goal. 

After initial tryouts, he was pleased to be one of the few dancers to receive a callback for one of eight team spots. A tap week and initiation followed, which consisted of fun spirit days like mismatch day and talent day. On the last day of initiation, the new taps had to do several special challenges like “teaching people random dances” and “doing choreography in public places,” Daniels said. 

As a mixed-gender, multicultural group, Rhythmic Blue prides itself on its diversity, with members ranging from first years to PhD candidates and Yale University employees. 

Browne could tell that Rhythmic Blue worked to make the audition environment enjoyable, she said. People were cheering every time she completed a run-through of the choreography and offered a lot of encouragement over the audition process. She told the News that she was able to feed off this energy and channel it into her dancing, which “felt great!”

“I really enjoy the community that RB fosters,” Daniels said. “Everyone is extremely talented, open to new ideas and truly works together to uplift each other. In the high-stress environment Yale produces sometimes, Rhythmic Blue has been a safe space where I can enjoy the fruits that hip-hop has nurtured in me as well as be surrounded by such a supportive community of dancers.”

Daniels told the News about the preparation and hard work that went into producing “RB VISION,” their first show of the semester. Everyone on the team is given the opportunity to sign up to choreograph a dance for the show. After being placed into a dance based on tap year and available spaces, the group’s choreographers meet with dancers to prepare for show week. 

This semester, Daniels choreographed with other new taps, Jean-Francois, Moweta and co-president Maelle Tanoh ’25, for a dance titled “KCNM.” Additionally, every semester, Rhythmic Blue has a photoshoot promo for their new show, with this year’s theme being “high-fashion techno.” 

“I love Rhythmic Blue so much.” Moweta told the News, “They are my newfound family, and they honestly made my transition into Yale as a first year so much easier. Everyone’s personality shines not just through the choreography that they perform on stage but also in rehearsals and during group bonding times.”

But producing high-quality shows every semester is no easy feat, Daniels told the News. As the show nears tech week, Rhythmic Blue’s dancers find themselves running their show in the theater multiple times. While the experience can be stressful and tiresome, Daniels said that the “uplifting and upbeat” atmosphere makes it “worthwhile and enjoyable.” 

VISION was Daniels’s, Browne’s and Moweta’s first official show, with Daniels noting that it was “an unforgettable experience.”

All four shows were sold out before the first show began.

“After meeting the people who got in with me, I immediately knew that I was excited to be in RB,” Browne said. “Not only are they amazing dancers, but they’re great people with amazing energies and personalities that bring so much joy to every space. In rehearsals, in general, there is so much love in the room, and it is so amazing to see what students my age can create with and for each other.”

This Saturday, Rhythmic Blue will perform alongside other Yale and Harvard arts groups in the “HYLight: Harvard Yale Black Arts Showcase.” 

The post Rhythmic Blue welcomes in new tap class, holds first show of the year appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Plato and Gilgamesh shroud my mind, and the Hebrew Bible is somewhere in the back knocking on the front door; hours in attempt of pouring over their meaning weigh heavily over me. The lecture hall’s interior is a lowly-lit labyrinth of nervous, but enthusiastic students, full of an inviting presence that I did not previously associate with Directed Studies.

I take a handout outlining today’s lecture, Professor Michael Della Rocca, speaking on the first three of Plato’s Five dialogues and take a seat near the front. I, and the other students in my Directed Studies cohort, spend the next hour in notetaking and conversation. When it is all over I realize that it was actually… interesting. I survived my first week as a Yale and Directed Studies student. I feel at my limbs and check that all vital organs are still in the same shape as I found them. Hah, look at that. I’m none the worse for wear.

When I tell most people that I’m in Directed Studies, their initial reactions are usually flabbergast, genuine interest, or utter disdain. 

When I first heard of the program, I was intrigued by its main two components — reading books and talking about them. I was already a steadfast consumer of 1,000 page, 14-book long fantasy series’, far-too-long-and-convoluted-for-their-own-good and I figured, “Well, reading old literature from a time where people still believed in dragons and giants and the Fates can’t be far off.” 

And like most things worth doing, going into Directed Studies, I sought advice from a variety of reputable sources (ie. Reddit, I know, I’m not proud of it either) and discovered Yale students held a whirlwind of opinions, very few of which could be considered “favorable.” After weeks of being divided, I sent in my application essay, a piece about how Susanna Clarke inverts the narrative of English superiority in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and the rest is history. 

Now, I’m in the final stretch of my first Directed Studies semester. Fall is holding open the door and winter is trudging in, and with it follows final exams and the culmination of a millennium of Western writings. 

The canon is becoming increasingly complex as cultures and languages mingle, empires fall and are born, authors take more and more from their predecessors. With each essay, I find myself becoming slightly better at writing from the perspective of exiled Greek historians, or writers of epics whose names have been lost to time or philosophers who carry different ideologies but still find themselves building off of each other. 

All and all, I have to say that my time in Directed Studies has been nothing short of magical. It is everything that pleases me best: an introduction to the great works of antiquity that never prove boring. 

Personally, I think Directed Studies gets an unnecessarily bad reputation. The syllabus of readings seems daunting on paper, but they’re spaced out and paced in a way where each week is spent striving to deeply understand the books, rather than just get through them. 

My three professors — Benjamin Barasch, Timothy Kreiner and Brad Inwood — are all experts in their fields, masters of taking their discussion sections from simple conversations to tours of the past. 

Weekly lectures are the icing on the cake. The entire Directed Studies cohort gets to see the already vibrant community of Humanities professors speak on that week’s reading. Mixing this with a deep exploration of their fields of study, they often present new angles in which to interpret the texts. 

From Professor Pauline LeVen’s fascinating lecture on the subversive nature of Sappho’s poetry in contrast to the epics of Homer to Professor Bryan Garsten’s speech on the moral underpinnings of the Near Eastern literary tradition to our first colloquium on the foundational scientific innovations of Ancient Greece, it has been an amazing experience to see so many individuals who have immense passion for their craft and fields.

But nothing has prepared me for the friendship and support of my peers and professors. There’s an inspiring element of being in a room with so many people who love the humanities. Whose passion for dusty, old texts matches my own. Professors who work tirelessly to prepare lessons and discussions, and who even now are learning with us — still getting excited over stories and treatises they’ve read hundreds of times. 

It’s only my first semester at Yale and I’m still trying to find exactly where I fit in. But through Directed Studies, the tall, Gothic walls and cold evenings have become a little more familiar. Now that I’ve braved the harsh seas of the Mediterranean and spent my nights strolling the long streets of Rome, I’m confident to say Yale is finally starting to feel like home. 

The post In Defense of Directed Studies appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Plato and Gilgamesh shroud my mind, and the Hebrew Bible is somewhere in the back knocking on the front door; hours in attempt of pouring over their meaning weigh heavily over me. The lecture hall’s interior is a lowly-lit labyrinth of nervous, but enthusiastic students, full of an inviting presence that I did not previously associate with Directed Studies.

I take a handout outlining today’s lecture, Professor Michael Della Rocca, speaking on the first three of Plato’s Five dialogues and take a seat near the front. I, and the other students in my Directed Studies cohort, spend the next hour in notetaking and conversation. When it is all over I realize that it was actually… interesting. I survived my first week as a Yale and Directed Studies student. I feel at my limbs and check that all vital organs are still in the same shape as I found them. Hah, look at that. I’m none the worse for wear.

When I tell most people that I’m in Directed Studies, their initial reactions are usually flabbergast, genuine interest, or utter disdain. 

When I first heard of the program, I was intrigued by its main two components — reading books and talking about them. I was already a steadfast consumer of 1,000 page, 14-book long fantasy series’, far-too-long-and-convoluted-for-their-own-good and I figured, “Well, reading old literature from a time where people still believed in dragons and giants and the Fates can’t be far off.” 

And like most things worth doing, going into Directed Studies, I sought advice from a variety of reputable sources (ie. Reddit, I know, I’m not proud of it either) and discovered Yale students held a whirlwind of opinions, very few of which could be considered “favorable.” After weeks of being divided, I sent in my application essay, a piece about how Susanna Clarke inverts the narrative of English superiority in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and the rest is history. 

Now, I’m in the final stretch of my first Directed Studies semester. Fall is holding open the door and winter is trudging in, and with it follows final exams and the culmination of a millennium of Western writings. 

The canon is becoming increasingly complex as cultures and languages mingle, empires fall and are born, authors take more and more from their predecessors. With each essay, I find myself becoming slightly better at writing from the perspective of exiled Greek historians, or writers of epics whose names have been lost to time or philosophers who carry different ideologies but still find themselves building off of each other. 

All and all, I have to say that my time in Directed Studies has been nothing short of magical. It is everything that pleases me best: an introduction to the great works of antiquity that never prove boring. 

Personally, I think Directed Studies gets an unnecessarily bad reputation. The syllabus of readings seems daunting on paper, but they’re spaced out and paced in a way where each week is spent striving to deeply understand the books, rather than just get through them. 

My three professors — Benjamin Barasch, Timothy Kreiner and Brad Inwood — are all experts in their fields, masters of taking their discussion sections from simple conversations to tours of the past. 

Weekly lectures are the icing on the cake. The entire Directed Studies cohort gets to see the already vibrant community of Humanities professors speak on that week’s reading. Mixing this with a deep exploration of their fields of study, they often present new angles in which to interpret the texts. 

From Professor Pauline LeVen’s fascinating lecture on the subversive nature of Sappho’s poetry in contrast to the epics of Homer to Professor Bryan Garsten’s speech on the moral underpinnings of the Near Eastern literary tradition to our first colloquium on the foundational scientific innovations of Ancient Greece, it has been an amazing experience to see so many individuals who have immense passion for their craft and fields.

But nothing has prepared me for the friendship and support of my peers and professors. There’s an inspiring element of being in a room with so many people who love the humanities. Whose passion for dusty, old texts matches my own. Professors who work tirelessly to prepare lessons and discussions, and who even now are learning with us — still getting excited over stories and treatises they’ve read hundreds of times. 

It’s only my first semester at Yale and I’m still trying to find exactly where I fit in. But through Directed Studies, the tall, Gothic walls and cold evenings have become a little more familiar. Now that I’ve braved the harsh seas of the Mediterranean and spent my nights strolling the long streets of Rome, I’m confident to say Yale is finally starting to feel like home.

The post In Defense of Directed Studies appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The awards are presented annually, recognizing service work that impacts the Yale community and demonstrates passion to the City of New Haven and a commitment to helping others, per the Association’s website. The recipients each year include a Yale College student, a graduate or professional school student and a member of the alumni body. The 2023 Yale Alumni Association Public Service Award recipients are Salvador Gómez-Colón ’25, Reginald Dwayne Betts LAW ’16 and Ryan Sutherland SPH ’20 MED ’26.

Gómez-Colón is a humanitarian and climate resilience advocate. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he created the “Light and Hope for Puerto Rico” campaign in 2017 after the country was devastated by Hurricane Maria. The campaign distributed solar-powered lamps and hand-powered washing machines to over 3,500 families. 

“I feel immensely grateful to Yale and the Yale community for the award,” Gómez-Colón told the News. “Receiving this great distinction is further encouragement to keep supporting those on the frontlines of climate change at home and abroad.”

Following the campaign, Gómez-Colón led dozens of disaster-relief missions in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. He has also advised youth-led sustainability initiatives spanning four continents. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, CNN, The New York Times and NPR. For his service work, Gómez-Colón has received the President’s Environmental Youth Award, the Diana Award and the Puerto Rico Governor’s Youth Medal. 

Sutherland is the Executive Director of the New Haven Poverty Alleviation through Washing Soles Project, known as PAWS, a service organization in New Haven that works to provide shoes, socks and podiatrist hygiene kits to members of the community experiencing homelessness and extreme poverty. This year, PAWS collected over $120,000 in donated shoes, socks and hygiene products with the support of Soles4Soles and Bombas. 

While volunteering for New Haven’s Volunteer Medical Corps and the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness’s annual Point in Time count team, Sutherland told the News that one of the most common complaints their homeless patients and clients had was that their feet were sore from walking all morning and evening. 

“Some of them were on their feet upwards of 16 hours a day,” Sutherland told the News. “Some had shoes two sizes too small, and some wore damp, holey socks with shoes that were held together with duct tape.”

Wanting to help address their foot health and well-being, Sutherland told the News that he began looking for opportunities to volunteer. 

Sutherland served as the Executive Director of PAWS from 2019 to 2020 and resumed the role in 2022 when he returned to Yale for medical school. 

Since then, he has been involved in homeless outreach, working closely with an array of community partners through his prior work at Community Alliance for Research & Engagement at the Yale School of Public Health to convene the Coordinated Food Assistance Network. 

“I am honored to have received this award, but do not accept it without acknowledging what it means,” Sutherland told the News. “By receiving it, I hope to use this platform to call attention to the struggles our homeless, undocumented, and impoverished neighbors face. I hope that the issue of homelessness and extreme poverty will be increasingly brought to light after receiving this award and am honored that Yale finds my contributions to the New Haven community worthy to applaud.”

Sutherland also served as a member of the Community Leadership Team on the City of New Haven’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion project, as a community health advocate with the Sex Workers and Allies Network and has collaborated with multiple local area food pantries to host shoe and coat giveaways with PAWS.

Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, educator, legal scholar, 2021 MacArthur Fellow and Founder and CEO of Freedom Reads, an organization that works to improve access to literature in prisons.

While earning his J.D. from Yale Law School, Betts became an advocate for the New Haven community by working in the city’s Public Defender’s Office, where he represented local students facing expulsion. 

In 2020, Betts founded Freedom Reads with a $5.25 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The only organization in the country to provide libraries to prisons, Freedom Reads supports the efforts of incarcerated individuals to build new lives and seek new possibilities. Freedom Reads has established over 170 Freedom Libraries in 31 prisons and juvenile detention facilities across 10 states. 

Betts has published three collections of poetry, his memoir, “A Question of Freedom,” which was the recipient of the 2010 NAACP Image Award for non-fiction, and his most recent work, “Redaction.” In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for “Getting Out,” a New York Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney.

“It is a huge honor because, when you are acknowledged it feels like Yale is honoring you but more importantly work that you chose to do,” Betts told the News. “Incarceration, literacy, books. They have all been central to my life.”

The winners will be honored on Dec. 5 at a ceremony hosted at the Rose Alumni House. 

The post Three Yalies honored with Alumni Association Public Service Awards for community impact appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The Vilnius 700 Symposium, which was held from Oct. 12 to 13, marked the 700th anniversary of Vilnius’s first mention in recorded sources. Recognizing centuries of historical, political and social significance to many nations in Central and Eastern Europe, the symposium organizers told the News that they are hoping to establish a better understanding of Vilnius’s place in world history. 

Bradley Woodworth, a history professor at the University of New Haven and the manager for the Baltic Studies Program, said the symposium aims to recognize the efforts, sacrifice and dedication of the late Lithuanian American businessman Joseph P. Kazickas GRD ’51. 

“Joseph Kazickas and his family have always donated significant amounts of money to Yale,” Woodworth said. “He was also the most significant donor to the Baltic Studies Program.”

During World War II, Kazickas and his family fled Vilnius for Germany, where they lived in a displaced persons camp. It was during this time that Kazickas, who had previously studied at Vytautas Magnus University and Vilnius University, received a scholarship to attend Yale’s postgraduate economics program. 

The Kazickas Family Foundation established the Joseph P. Kazickas Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Yale in 2012, which invites students from Lithuania to pursue professional degrees in fields including law and policy, business and history. 

“Joseph saw his opportunity to study at Yale as a massive stepping stone for his future,” Woodworth said. “He and his family wanted their gift to make it possible for Lithuanians to come to Yale and have a life changing experience as well.”

Woodworth also pointed to Maksimas Milta GRD ’23, who graduated from Yale last June with a masters degree in European and Russian studies, as helping to establish the symposium. He said that Milta encouraged the Baltic Studies Program to celebrate Vilnius’ 700th anniversary. 

Woodworth also emphasized the central role of Milta in the conception and design of the symposium. It was thanks to his original suggestions regarding its structure and components that the symposium was able to come about. 

“Vilnius celebrates 700 years since its first written mention this year. Yet its diversity is not some recent trend,” Milta said. “From the beginning the raison d’être of Vilnius has been to be a capital city of an ethnically and confessionally diverse Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Europe’s largest country in the 15th century, that brought together modern day Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine.”

The symposium featured a keynote discussion, a music recital, two exhibitions of Yale book collections connected to Vilnius and four interdisciplinary panels.

Each of the events sought to problematize and discuss Vilnius as a place of history, arts and faith, exile and education, according to Miltas. 

“In other words, we purposefully emphasize the polyphony of Vilnius and forms of its manifestation in different settings, rather than traditional ethnic or confessional-heavy focus on Vilnius,” Miltas said. “This makes the event unique.” 

Edyta Bojanowska, a Slavic Languages and Literatures professor and chair of Yale’s European Studies Council, presented the symposium’s introductory remarks, saying that the Council was “thrilled” to host the symposium and facilitate “lively interest” in the topic at the Yale community. 

While the symposium served as a tribute to the culture and life of Vilnius and Lithuania, Miltas said the organizers also want people to remember Vilnius’s importance in terms of Eastern Europe’s struggle for liberty and freedom. 

“Vilnius is also a place where the atrocities of totalitarian Nazi and Soviet regimes led to extermination of hundreds of thousands of people, including 95 percent of the Jews,” he said. “Today, Vilnius is also a shelter for tens of thousands of refugees from Belarus and Russia fleeing authoritarian oppression, as well as to tens of thousands of Ukrainian families affected by Russia’s war of aggression.” 

Lithuania is the largest of the three Baltic countries in both landmass and population. Woodworth emphasized that even before its connection with Poland and Christianity, Vilnius was a multiethnic state. 

While living in Vilnius in December of 1990, Woodworth attended a joint session of Parliament, and said that he was “fortunate” to write about and witness the efforts of the Lithunaians to establish their identity.  

“Vilnius will continue to be an example of how people can come together in times of challenge,” he said. “For example, all three Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — are providing incredible solidarity with Ukraine; and they are providing per capita the most support to the war effort in Ukraine. They will continue to be shining examples of the values of freedom and solidarity.”

In early July, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization held its summit in Vilnius. Lithuania has been part of the European Union since 2004. 

Woodworth also serves as the vice president of conferences for the association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies. 

The next conference will take place in June 2024.

Correction, Oct. 25: This article has been amended to correct a misspelling of Vilnius.

The post Yale Vilnius 700 Symposium celebrates history of Lithuania’s capital city  appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Coming off midterms and plunging myself deeper into the depths of Directed Studies, I’ve found that a change of scenery every once in a while goes a long way in keeping my sanity. So for those unfortunate souls who find themselves adopting the very unfashionable surname of “study” for the semester, I offer a reprieve: a list. The likes of which will hopefully help you settle nicely into your new home. 

Kroon Hall

Located in the heart of Science Hill, Kroon Hall is the central hub of activity for the School of the Environment. It offers a nice departure from Yale’s trademark gothicness – scenic yet modern, and gloriously massive. The very top floor is a cathedral space hosting a lecture hall, classrooms, and its own cafe, while the bottom floor has even more classrooms and a library leading out to the lower courtyard. Coupled with its instantly recognizable wooden screens offering natural sunlight, it’s a study spot that leaves little to long for.

Steep Cafe

Our next study spot is literally steps away from Kroon Hall. At the top of Science Hill you’ll be excited to find none other than the lavishly comfortable Steep Cafe. Located within Kline Tower, it offers an amazing place to indulge in coffee, blended smoothies, kombucha on tap, sandwiches with way too many bread options, and yogurt. Complete with towering glass windows that give a great view, an outdoor patio for walks, and operating hours from sunup to sundown, it’s a great space to talk with friends or make an entire day out of studying. You might not want to live here permanently, but the variety of options definitely makes it possible.

Student Lounge – Humanities Quadrangle

From first glance, the massiveness of the Humanities Quadrangle can be daunting. It certainly lives up to its name, housing everything under the sun that can be considered in the humanities within its lovely stone walls. The icing on the cake is the Student Lounge, decadent with a chandelier and authentic wooden ceilings, it really makes you forget the impending dread of a philosophy paper due the next day. Cozy and compact, the Student Lounge lets you bask in the warmth from its nearby central fireplace and “lounge” in the many couches around the room. You’ll probably have to go through the trouble of making a reservation through Yale, but it’s a small price to pay for such a lovely spot. 

Haas Arts Library Reading Room

In the mood for a study spot that’s just as fun to explore? Well, the Haas Arts Library Reading Room pretty much has you covered. Filled with textured surfaces, a lovely orange carpet, and shelves upon shelves of art history to get lost between, the Reading Room is a paradise for a quick study session or a night pouring over assignments. There are tons of options to sit, meaning you don’t have to be in one place long, complete with ample distractions if you get bored. If you’re one of those people who believe your surroundings define your soul(I’m one of those people), you’ll be delighted to find that the entire library is a masterwork of modernist architecture. This all leads to a study spot that lets you breathe in a place that feels super futuristic and sophisticated, but also grounded in sleek realism. The Haas Arts Reading Room feels surprisingly modern, sharp and stylish, yet comfortable and inviting. 

With the plethora of interesting study spots that Yale has to offer, it’s an anomaly that most students find themselves going back and forth to one place. True, some of these locations are definitely out there, and while I myself am not a fan of long walks on the path to academic doom, the beauty of Yale’s many scholarly venues makes the experience pretty bearable.

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The name of the business, Michel told the News, combines Michel’s grandmother’s nickname, “Ms. Darling,” with sorrel, a traditional Jamaican drink made from the sepals of a hibiscus species called roselle.

Michel previously was a podcast editor at the News, and Motley serves as the News’ public editor and is a former managing editor. The origins of the business lie in the News’ building, as Michel shared the drink with Motley one night. At first sip, Motley was “really impressed,” he said.

After this initial tasting, Motley said he suggested that Michel sell the drink. Michel initially laughed off the idea, but after Motley sent Michel a marketing plan document, Michel, who received encouragement from her family, decided to start the business. 

“The catalyst was really when Dante sent me that document,” Michel told the News. “I showed my parents and said, ‘This man is insane.’ I told my father, and he said, ‘What’s the most you can lose?’ I guess money and time, but I love a project!”

Michel and Motley met throughout the summer while Michel worked to perfect the sorrel recipe, according to Motley.  

Michel’s passion for making sorrel stems from watching her grandmother brew the beverage during her childhood. Michel said that her grandmother has always been a huge source of creative inspiration for her and is someone she goes to whenever she thinks about her Jamaican culture and the significance of holding multiple identities. 

Michel said she felt joyful and validated when her grandmother first praised her sorrel.

“During the summer, when my grandmother was visiting from Jamaica, she would pass by and smile — she would tell me it’s so dark and pretty,” Michel said. “That was the biggest test. For such a long time, I was afraid to reveal her name was connected to it.”

Motley told the News that he also has a passion for food and spent his summer doing social media work for a chef. 

Both Motley and Michel see the business as a “passion project.”

“We believe in it, and we know it’s good,” Motley said. “Entrepreneurship-wise and as a product itself, it’s really good.”

Michel and Motley said their entrepreneurial journey has recently focused on bringing Ms. Darling’s Sorrel to market. Over the summer, Michel sold 300 bottles at her family’s home-improvement store.

This semester at Yale, they began selling their drink in several residential college butteries. Both co-founders told the News that their connections with Yale and its student life have served as major sources of support and encouragement.

In addition to butteries, the Yale College Dean’s Office and the Yale College Democrats have both purchased bottles of the drink, according to Motley. 

Mustafa Zewar ’25, the buttery manager for Saybrook College, said that he is very excited about the drink’s arrival in Yale butteries, especially given the story behind Motley and Michel’s business.

“I think the taste speaks for itself by how quickly it has moved around campus, it’s obviously great,” Zewar said. “Besides that, it’s wonderful to have a drink that’s local, made by students with their own vision and cultural identity, especially at butteries that are filled with otherwise mass-produced and low-quality products.”

Motley and Michel also said that they hope to expand to local Jamaican businesses in New Haven. 

Michel and Motley started the semester with over 550 bottles; but after just two weeks of presale, they have sold almost all of their stock. 

“People love it,” Motley said. 

Michel told the News that the product differs from many unhealthier soft drink options offered in stores. 

Ms. Darling’s Sorrel is made with only four ingredients: water, hibiscus, organic ginger and sugar. Motley said that they worked to perfect the balance of these ingredients to remain authentic while also allowing a wide range of people to enjoy the drink. 

“We want to be authentic toward the drink and what it is, but at the same time palates differ between cultures, and we’re very much trying to balance that through product testing,” Motley said. “In Jamaica, it’s usually sweeter, but we’ve had really good feedback from native and non-native drinkers who say the reduction in sweetness allows them to enjoy it even more.”

While the business continues to grow, Michel told the News that she and Motley are not losing sight of the values that make Ms. Darling’s Sorrel so meaningful to them. 

When creating Ms. Darling’s Sorrel, Michel and Motley said they wanted everything — from their branding to the ingredients — to represent their honesty and devotion to the business. 

For Michel, the creation of the drink also signifies the role that food can play in preserving culture. 

“One way we can track lineage and genealogy is through food, and even though languages or religions may die, one thing people can usually agree on is food,” Michel said. “And so, in my family, food has always meant a lot in preserving culture.”

Motley is a first-year counselor in Grace Hopper College, as is Michel in Branford College.

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